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2nd Annual Free Software Foundation Awards
The awards were given out in conjunction with theBazar, a gathering of Open Source experts, boosters, and devotees featuring a number of tutorials on assorted Open Source and GNU/Linux-related topics.
Last year's Award for the Advancement of Free Software went to PERL-meister Larry Wall. This year the three finalists were Donald Knuth, John Gilmore, and Miguel de Icaza.
And the winner was (drum roll please) Miguel de Icaza!
Miguel lent the proceedings a moment of extra drama by arriving - literally - at the second his name was announced, right after RMS said he was not there and could not, therefore, be expected to make a speech. But there he was, and the speech was both brief and charming.
A surprise award was also given to Blockstackers, which has donated a significant amount of money to the Free Software Foundation. This award was accepted by a shocked - and literally blushing - Rob Malda.
We join the Free Software Foundation in congratulating Miguel de Icaza.
See pictures of the award ceromony and participants here.
Not to belittle Miguel - his work on bringing free software to the masses is very commendable, and Gnome is in and of itself living proof that you can actually build relatively good software using languages from New Jersey (*rimshot*) - but he just doesn't stand up to Knuth. I mean, the guy's a shining beacon of excellence in computer science. Miguel himself probably learned a lot of programming skills from Knuth's books. If anyone deserves a big fat award, it's old Don at Palo Alto. The only perspective from which I can conceive of Miguel as being more award-worthy than Knuth is the "making free software user-friendly" idea. (That is, as user-friendly as an Un*x gets. *rimshot*)
So I hope that Knuth gets what he deserves next time. (It wouldn't hurt to give him a couple of VA shares either.)
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
Let please not only focus on GNOME, Miguel has contributed to many GNU projects. Anybody using RAID on Linux is using Miguel's code. Also if you have ever used Linux on a SPARC you can also thank Miguel since he was also involved with that.
Yes, I know putting them under the comdex dir is asking for trouble... but at least they are there
pax, Bishop
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I use Miguel's code every day, and I'm not even referring to his work w/ GNOME. Significant portions of the Linux kernel port to SPARC were done by Miguel, most notably the Sun Lance ethernet driver.
Yes, Virginia, there really is a CowboyNeal.
Look at that thing!!! It's much cooler than an oscar. It has a picture of a friendly bearded GNU on the front, could probably double as a blanket for a midget, and looks like it's the exact same thing as free software - homemade. :)
Very colorful. Oscars just gather dust on shelves. This thing can hang on the wall. Very nice. Wish I had one.
OK, Knuth deserves one, sure, but he's not dead yet, and there will be awards like this in the future. Knuth may be VERY deserving of one, but it's hard to say that Icaza isn't deserving as well.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
Roblimo left out the "http://" -- to see the photos, click here.
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"I am not trying to prove that I am right... I am only trying to find out whether." -Bertolt Brecht
<sig>Guvf vf abg n frperg zrffntr
I think this why Knuth didn't win. TeX is an integral part of the GNU system but isn't as important as GNOME. As far as all of Knuth's other accomplichments, well, I don't think the award is about that.
I personally feel that Knuth should have gotten the award but I can understand why Miguel got it. Just look at everything he has done with GNOME:
So it makes sense really. But still, developing TeX and making it free... a difficult thing to compete with.
Congratulations to Miguel and the finalists... and thanks.
(I sincerely hope there is no political hocus-pocus going on... I don't think so but...)
Whoa.. the /. crowd goes nuts again...
There were probably about 125 people in the audience by my estimation.
RMS explained why they eliminated Knuth from the 3 finalists by basically saying that he was in a whole other league and has already won just about every award out there and there wouldn't be any point in adding yet another award to the long list. He is already recognized.
-Rasmus
I have been following the GNOME project since Miguel was writing the predecessor to Gnumeric in Scheme. (Yes, Scheme.) During this time, I have never seen him bash anyone or anything. He even gives credit to Microsoft, for cryin' out loud (for good GUI design in Word and Excel, in case you're curious). The only criticisms I have seen him make are of 1) Microsoft's business practices and 2) the old Qt license. These were reasoned criticisms that actually explained how consumers were hurt and focuesd on positive solutions. There was never anything approaching "bashing". Miguel is always one to say "I believe" or "many people prefer" or "there are concerns about". He almost never explicitly says "This is bad."
Since the new Qt license, I haven't seem Miguel say a bad word about KDE. His only comments are ones of encouragement and praise for the virtues of "competition". By the way, did you know he uses FreeBSD as well as Linux? Now he tests his software on his own box, running FreeBSD. So he's not bashing anyone in that camp, either.
Despite the divisive flames of people like you, the actual KDE and GNOME developers are working closer than ever before. Window managers like E support them both. The only thing lacking is a common object model, and programmers from both sides are working on the idea.
Stop trying to sabotage the free software movement. Stop slandering Miguel.
Vovida, OS VoIP
Beer recipe: free! #Source
Cold pints: $2 #Product